Derelict Spaces

I honestly had the intention of just taking sad pictures of New Orleans for this blog. Most of the city is, in fact, disgustingly derelict. However, my break revolved less around homework than it could have and I failed at my true intention. I did snap a picture of this one scary building downtown I saw on our way to rent a Uhaul (still had stuff in NO). This is on a particular stretch called Tulane Avenue that used to be a very popular business street 40 or so years ago. Now there are businesses like auto sales, bail bonds, bars and shady hotels. Who knows what this building used to be, but it is nothing now. Some poor fool is building mixed-use condos to try to "revive" Tulane Ave. Good luck with that!

The second picture is of an abandoned Burger King in my parents' neighborhood. I have no idea what would cause a chain like BK to go out of business in a busy neighborhood, but this one did somehow. Now it is boarded up and highly unsightly. It's been shut down for so long it has lost all of its BK touches and just looks like some unrecognizable fast food joint. I imagine there is moldy hamburger meat in there somewhere.

These pictures are of some nasty graves in my old neighborhood church's cemetery. Now we have graves in there dating back to 1739, but for the love of god, has no one heard of restoration? Some of the above ground tombs (a swampy necessity since if we dig too far we hit water) look near collapse. I fear looking at them for too long because I feel like a skeleton will fall out. The graves of the plantation elite that are over 100 years old look great. But for the rest of us buried under bricks instead of marble, the elements have been unkind. Until someone restores these graves to look half-decent, I will consider them a part of the derelict landscape.

Varying Degress of Chinese Restaurants

Here I want to compare the architecture of the chain restaurant P.F. Chang's to the local Mandarin Palace on North Ave. It is important to acknowledge the difference in financial capital to explain these two different looks. P.F. Chang's, a phenomenally delicious national chain, has the kind of status and finances to result in a major mall placement. This particular P.F.'s is in Cumberland Mall, a suburban mall with high-end clientele. It also has a design to fit in with all other locations: big horsey statues and a modern, Asian flair. The entrance is framed in faux stone and red stained glass. The shape of the restaurant depends entirely on the space rented from the mall, so the exterior entrance is the space that must beckon in the passerby for crab rangoons from heaven. It works.
While these are both Chinese restaurants, the Mandarin Palace has an entirely different aesthetic. I don't know what on earth it was before, but its pointy, triangular roof is far from Asian style, though it does try to make up for it with a pagoda-style awning. Sans large statues and stained glass, this entrance beckons you with florescent "open" signs. Of course, a meal here will be decidedly cheaper, so the business has less capital to invest in its ambiance and architectural form. I will go out of my way to eat at P.F.'s if I'm in the mood for something special, but if I can find a closer, cheaper Chinese joint with decent food, that one will win out sometimes. As long as it doesn't taste like dog. While both structures strive to be Chinese in outward appearance, the difference between the chain and local restaurant is easily seen.

The layers of my plantation visit:

After visiting a plantation back home over Thanksgiving Break, my pictures relate to a myriad of what we discussed in class. For one, this is a sort of space for play. There is a gift shop, re-enactments of plantation life and the grounds are often rented out for receptions. Perhaps you could look at it as a historical theme park. There aren't any rides, but you can still have fun pretending you are in another time period!

Throughout its two-hundred-year history, the main house served as a single family home AND a multi-unit living building. The French aristocratic families that owned it used the main house as a giant family home with rooms for sleeping, eating and entertaining. After an oil company bought it in the early 1900s, the main house became offices. The company built an oil refinery on the land, thus the main house also housed some of the managers living on site. This is a great example of renovating and reusing a house according to the needs of a certain time.

On top of that, the house was renovated in 1850, replacing the French colonial style with the more popular Greek revival. You can see this in the large, white columns. Those were not a part of the original construction and show that even back then people were influenced by housing "eras." Just as the Victorian made way for the bungalow, the Greek revival replaced the French colonial style as what was trendy in New Orleans at the time.

The plantation grounds are also an example of derelict spaces and reconstruction. It was abandoned for a few decades before a local historical society formed and were deeded the land to rescue and restore. After all the outbuildings were torn down to make room for the refinery, the historical society had other plantations donate buildings to be moved and reconstructed on site. The Mule Barn which houses the receptions held at the plantation was built in 1850, but not where it now stands. Here the plantation uses the built environment of other environments, but adapts it as its own for historical representation.

Houses of a Different Color

I have an odd appreciation for mid-century architecture, so I found this assignment very exciting. I selected two variations of a ranch house and then I photographed a small neighborhood of new houses to examine the difference between the two types of houses. All of these houses are in Tucker, just off the Brockett Road, Coolege Road exit on Highway 78.

In the time when ranch houses were popular they offered new homebuyers a sense of freedom they did not have before; this was achieved not only from the rustic design but also through the affordable layout and construction. The lay of the land played into this, as often the homes were set on hills or in valleys, within the rolling and contoured landscape. The two houses pictured below seem to be inviting in a way that a new house isn’t, at least in my opinion. Although they are set back from the street and don’t have a large, inviting porch that you might find on an older house, they remind you of a simpler time, when you didn’t need a four-car garage and 15-foot ceilings to make your house a home. They both look very different and not at all mass-produced like new homes do. They were probably constructed as part of larger developments, but they don’t look much like the houses around them of the same type. Plan-books and magazines offered ideas for the types of new homes to construct, but home-owners could add their own taste and style to the design to really make it their own. The split-level home has a barn feel to it, while the “regular” ranch has a fancy look to it. These are just two options of how people were able to take a basic floor plan and dress it up to match their style and needs. These houses look to be in very good condition, which suggests that whoever purchased these homes after the original owners likely took pride in keeping them in good condition.

These new houses however, pictured below, do not give off that same sense of individuality. If you notice, they all look very similar, possibly even having the same floor plan only with minor changes here and there, like a different paint scheme or a garage on a different side of the facade. These houses do look mass-produced and almost cookie-cutter like. They do give the same freedom to homebuyers that the ranch houses did in their day, but they now offer the size and space that have become required with the new generation of first-time home buyers. People need more space it seems than they did in the past to house all their accumulated stuff. Houses today are produced in a way that will allow for fast construction and easy selling points; many new homes allow the buyer to choose their own appliances and floor plan from a stock list. They are sometimes made with pre-assembled parts that are put up like the houses in Levittown. This is similar to plan-book houses of the mid-century, but people had much more say in the arrangement and design than they do now. The basic design and the exterior are already determined, you just get to choose if you want a finished basement or a larger master bedroom when you “customize” your house. These houses will likely fall apart faster than the ranch houses that are all around this area, which suggests that there is a reason that people may want to preserve the unique mid-century neighborhoods that can be found across the country as opposed to these new neighborhoods that don’t seem to have the same appeal and cause for excitement that came when ranch house neighborhoods were developed.

The Mall

When one thinks of going to the mall, they don’t generally think of looking at the building or the layout. Granted you go look at the map of the mall to see where the store you want to go to is, but you don’t really notice where the stairs, escalators and doorways are in relation to that store. The Mall of Georgia is a rather large mall that has not only the stores in the main building, but also some outdoor stores around a plaza with a fountain. I did not have quite the success taking pictures that other people did, because I went on a Saturday and the Segway security guards were out in full force, but I got a few shots.

From just my observations I noticed quite a bit more than I usually do when I go to the mall. Of course, as with most malls, the larger, anchor stores are located at the ends or cross-section ends of the mall. Some of the smaller anchor stores like Old Navy, Pottery Barn and Gap are at midpoints between the larger stores or on corners at the cross-sections. Dick’s Sporting Goods is an oddity as it is not your typical anchor store but is at the end of one of the cross-sections like one of the “typical” anchor stores. All the other stores are mixed in between, along the sides and in much smaller spaces. The food court is pretty much in the middle of the mall. You can sample a wide selection of tasty foods, from Chinese, to hamburgers, to cinnamon buns and pretzels. There are also food stands throughout the mall that are not confined to the food court.

You can find kiosks and carts spread throughout the mall as well. They sell everything from space-age ice cream to cell phones and sunglasses. These seem to create a second row of stores in the middle of what may normally be walking space. In some spots these carts line the railing that surrounds the cut-out in the floor on the second level. In other places, the kiosks sit in the middle of the path, between two sides of actual stores. These “stores” seem to have much more space than the smaller, non-anchor stores because the vendors have the ability to wander outside the space around their carts to “hunt” for customers. You can often see people walking briskly past these carts in an attempt to avoid being cornered by someone pedaling the latest lotion from some far-away place like France.

The stairs are at the cross-sections, just outside one of the anchor stores or leading to an exit off the side of the mall. This seemed to regulate the flow of people from one level to the next. I noticed very few elevators or escalators aside from those in the center of the mall near the food court. In the food court area is also where the only glimpse of the third floor of the mall is. This can only be reached by escalator or elevator and it is where the movie theater is. It has become somewhat common place to find a movie theater in a mall, but that was not usually where one looks to go watch a movie. You purchase your tickets on the second floor, just off one of the cross-sections and occupying the entire side of this wing is a ticket counter and an arcade. It is quite odd.

People seemed to be moving quite freely on either side of the mall, as there were two paths formed by the large open holes in the floor that allowed you to see the other level. There were signs, like the one below that encouraged people to continue moving. When people would be moving too slow or would stop in the middle of a walkway, people would walk around them. It was almost like watching cars moving on the road. The maps were located off to the side, usually by an entrance, possibly to avoid congestion in the major thoroughfares. It was interesting to observe the mall in this way, because it gave me an opportunity to notice the planning that goes into making the operation run smoothly.

Those Suspiciously Un-American Multi-Unit Dwellings

Below are three very different examples of multi-dwelling units in Decatur, GA.


The first two pics above are of Ponce de Leon Court, which sits right outside of downtown Decatur. A rarity in the South, this type of typical bungalow court is usually found out West, as documented in our readings. I've heard that this is actually the only bungalow court in all of Georgia...and while this obviously can't be observed from just looking at it, the apartment building above is especially unique to the South and definitely has a Southwestern flair. And while the bungalows in the first pic are quite common in the area, such an old development on a cul-de-sac is also quite unique on the East Coast.

In terms of clientele, this development is technically a predecessor of the subdivision, built on the close outskirts of cities to for both families looking for detached housing and those looking for an apartment. The combination of both an apartment and detached housing represents an early experiment with multi-dwelling units and how to accommodate a variety of upper class clients. Since it was built early in the 20th century, there is little accommodation for the automobile, either for the bungalow or the apartment. For that reason a majority of parking today is done on the street.

This post-war apartment, sitting on a Decatur side street in a largely historic neighborhood is relatively plain, with little more than small metal awnings over the doors and a brick facade to qualify as "aesthetics", but its actually quite an interesting building. Even though its probably post-war, there is no accessible parking provided near the front doors. There is a short dead-end driveway along one side of the property but no parking in the rear. Plus the front door to each unit has no pathway to the street. With only three points of entry to the building, it can be deduced that this building either has interior hallways with individual units off of it, or it just has three massive units. I would suspect the former. The sparse exterior and limited number of windows and visible amenities signals that this structure was built for middle to lower class residents.


This final example of a multi-dwelling building is the 335 W. Ponce condominiums along Ponce de Leon Ave. in downtown Decatur. This structure is obviously much newer than the previous two examples, demonstrated by the very modern design (brick/stucco combo, floating balconies, small, square single-pane windows). This building's clientele is more in line with those of the bungalow court than the post-war structure on Northern. Units are relatively large and each resident is provided with their own balcony. Additionally the building is designed with first floor retail, signaling a part of the late 20th century movement to bring mixed use buildings back to our downtowns.

ATL Hotels Thru the Ages (OK, just the last century)

Here are three examples of hotels from around metro Atlanta. The first is The Highland Inn on Highland Avenue in the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood. This inn was probably built some time in the 1910s-1920s to accommodate overnight guests visiting the city. The high-quality of the stone front façade and the elaborate cornice indicate that this structure was designed for upper class guests. The small, double-hung windows are a good indication of the building’s age, as more contemporary hotels would most likely have larger, single-pane windows. Also, the lack of easily accessible parking speaks to the age of the building. The awning, if an original component of the building, also suggests that the hotel was designed to accommodate wealthy guests with a served meal.

This second structure is the Gwinnett Inn outside Stone Mountain, Georgia. The sign for the inn advertises a “Jacuzzi” and “weekly rates”. Though this modest post-war hotel may have once served as a regular hotel for overnight guests, today it’s dated look and obvious advertising of ‘weekly rates” indicates that today it serves as an SRO. Unlike the Highland, it provides parking for its occupants.

This contemporary Best Western is also located in Stone Mountain. Unlike both the Highland Inn and the Gwinnett Inn, this Best Western caters fully to the automobile by providing an awning to pull under in your car when checking in. Parking encircles the entire structure, making access to the 2-story motel convenient to those in vehicles. Unlike the Gwinnett, this Best Western property is landscaped for the pleasure of its visitors and attempts an actual style, which I guess I would deem "Southwestern".

A Bonus Posting: Shots along the interstate while lost

In anticipation of the upcoming presentations, I began to think about some of the more memorable readings. Reyner Banham came to mind, and as I was about to get on the interstate, it looked like he was right. I do need the signs (or Garmin) to guide me. Today, it's even more difficult to know where you are without signs because of the noise pollution blocking walls. The pictures came out surprisingly well, given that I just pointed in random directions and clicked. Anyway, best wishes for presentations tomorrow. I've enjoyed looking at the city in a new way. It's still easier to see ruins, but complete structures are growing on me.

Post Script to all readers and bloggers: I have noticed (while lost) that some of the street signs do not apply to either the street I'm currently on or the cross-street. In Columbus, it's even more difficult because they didn't have signs at all. How do you find your way around in those situations, or do you also just depend on Garmins and the like, hoping the batteries will not give out?

And now for my final blog: The Central Business District. I, once again, choose the view outside the Arts Center MARTA station. This area is a bit odd, as in the middle of all the skyscrapers, there is a Victorian house. The zone of transition is difficult to see as the interstate is right next to the CBD. There are quite a few open lots, empty building, and other signs of transition. However, with all the construction occurring, it is difficult to see the decay mentioned in the readings when they very well be razed in preperation for the expansion of the interstates. There is a clear difference in walking just four blocks across this area, but once again, it is hard to say what kind of zone this truly is.

Ranch house and Three Car Garages

When I first learned about this sketchbook assignment, I decided the best manner to complete it was to get lost in suburban hell. As I live near a quasi-suburban area in Midtown, this was quite easy to accomplish. I remember starting out on Peachtree Battle, but the Peachtree this or the So-and-so's Mill that insured that I have absolutely no idea where the photos actually came from.

This photo is of a ranch house with a rather extensive gated lawn. I am unsure of when the house itself was built, but at one point, a three car garage was added. This puts construction or remodeling sometime in the late 1990s to the present time.

This house was right around the corner. It does not have a garage, only a car port. This is either a much older house or a very authentic modern construction. The house had working shutters and rocking chairs on the front porch. I plan on returning to the neighborhood this Christmas (should I find it again) to see if the different homeowners also have different style of decorating for the Holidays.

My final house was in an odd neighborhood. Each house looked very similar, but not in a planned way. Some had the same roof lines, other the same shutters. Three had similar entrances with the columns. I see this as an odd modified ranch house. It certainly matches the mish-mash of styles ranch houses adopt. Once again, I am hoping to run into this neighborhood again to see if there is individuality in Christmas decorating.

This weeks reading on grocery stores made me wonder if this method of organization is echoed in other types of stores. The larger stores, like Petco and Walgreens is organized in such a manner, so I looked a liquor stores. This one has no name that I could find. The neon lights say liquor, liquor, beer, wine, so in my head that is the name of the store. There are very small lanes which people can walk down, but there was no organization that I could find beyond a wine section, beer in the fridge, liquor along the western half of the store. Sambuca was next to vodka and amaretto. The rum section was small. All and all, it is similar and very different from the grocery store model.

This is my local Publix store. There are very few windows located in the front of the store. It's very odd, almost casino-mentality: if the customer can't tell how long they've been here, they'll shop longer and buy more. It works. I lose track of time in grocery stores frequently. The lanes were large and well-lit. Signs were everywhere. The entire store smelled like bread. A very different experience than Liquor, Liquor, Beer, Wine store.

Multi-Family Units

To be honest, I don't know much about this building. It's right next to I-85/I-75 and 14th St. The building is recent, but located so close to Atlantic Station and all their high-rise luxury condominiums, it looks a little dated and sad. It falls somewhere between the garden-view walk up and the high-rise. It's actually rather reminiscent of several mid-level hotels.

This building complex I am quite familiar with as it is my own. It has it's own golf course and three swimming pools. It's subdivided into different enclaves, Maison, LeFue, ect. It's your basic gated complex, with garden view apartments and townhouses . . . and more speed bumps than sense. Honestly, nine speed bumps up the 3/4 of a mile to my apartment. Another nine on the way down the hill.

These I found on the way to work one day. I was curious and was running early, so I ignored the PRIVATE DRIVEWAY: DO NOT ENTER sign and went exploring. I found individually owned row houses, with some slight degree of variation. One house had an awning, another had shutters. I found them absolutely charming. And the people were quite friendly, even if their sign was not.

Spaces of Play

So, once again, I'm am trying to blog on this topic, spaces of play. Here's hoping this one survives. When my father came to visit, we did many typical touristy things, like visit the aquarium. This visit, and looking over the pictures taken, sent many ideas flowing around my brain. One was the number of maps and signs available. It was actually more confusing with all the information than just wandering around. The aquarium is set up with different zones, the cold-water zone, the tropical reefs, the river, and the petting zoo. Everything was curved, lending a degree of privacy and solitude to a very crowded and noisy environment. The glass itself, at least in the reef, looked very much like a movie theatre. At times, it was like watching someones screen saver.

The other random thought was on the children. Much of the time, all I could hear was "Where's Nemo? I can't find Nemo." By the time we reached the end of the reef zone, the children were stressed out, and many missed seeing the clown fish aka "Big Nemo." As this entertained three generations of my family as well as the next generation, it qualifies as a space of play.

The other space of play is the High Museum. This is a very different environment. No petting zoo, no touching, no food is allowed among the artwork. This past weekend, there were numerous special events to keep people entertained as they waited in line to get to the special Terracotta exhibition. The museum had different shows set up in the lobby and a local martial arts school was dressed as the soldiers. The lobby of the old building is particularly well set up for such shows. It is clear

and open to the roof, some five levels above the main floor. This part of the museum is all curved lines and glass. It did prove a way to be somewhat entertaining as one waited (and waited) in line.

Ruins I have Known

I begin this blog assignment at the end of our class. It is more natural for me to look at ruins and try to image what was once there than to analyze whole buildings.

This is not the photo I originally planned on using for my first picture of a ruin. This is one taken at a field school in Antigua from the summer of 2004. They're actually all standing around a grave we had to pick-ax our way to. You can barely seen the remnants of the mausoleum, with the slab of stone in the right front part of the picture of of the grave stones.

The picture on the left is from Tulum, Mexico. It has been restored to what archaeologists think it originally looked like. On some walls, you can see the remnants of red paint. It was difficult to take a picture, both because I had very little film left and the tourists were all over the place. Very controlled place, almost archaeological Disney. It was very pretty though.

This final picture is one of the many parking lots around Arts Center MARTA station. There is no clear evidence about what it was before it became a parking lot. It is not especially well-cared for. There are vines growing all over the place. This place tells me little about the history of this area. Not pretty, not tourist-related, not archaeological, but still a ruin.